The Leadership Wisdom of Waffle House
Insights from Bert Thornton, President/COO, Vice-Chairman Emeritus
Bert Thornton, President/CEO, Vice-Chairman Emeritus of Waffle House, Inc., and author of Find an Old Gorilla: Pathways Through the Jungle of Business and Life and High Impact Mentoring: A Practical Guide to Creating Value in Other People’s Lives shared a story that I had the opportunity to hear this morning. Bert tells the story of a young man named Dave, the manager at the Waffle House location in Atlanta, near the Georgia Tech campus.
When Dave and Bert met in-person, Dave asked Bert, “What will it take for me to get promoted?”, to which Bert replied, “That’s simple. Make yourself the obvious choice.”
There are four things you need to focus on to make yourself the obvious choice for promotion and career advancement, according to Thornton.
Care. Try. Learn. Stay.
You have to care. This is the cost of entry. If you don’t care about the work you’re doing or the people with whom you’re doing it, then nothing else matters. If you find yourself at the point where you don’t care about the people and the work, and you’re just showing up every day, punching a clock, and collecting a paycheck, it’s probably time for you to find something new and different to do. But if you do care, then you also need to focus on the next three insights.
You have to try. Each day, you have to show up well. Put in the reps. And do everything you can to be successful, both for your team and for yourself. This is where your attitude and your resilience come into play as key factors in your ability to continue showing up every day to try, even when you feel like it’s an uphill battle.
You need to learn. According to John Maxwell, “all leaders are learners.” Thornton further argues that if you’re not learning every day, your team and your organization will lap you and grow beyond your knowledge, experience, and capacity to lead. The most successful leaders read regularly. They absorb content through podcasts, seminars, training programs, coaching conversations and mentoring sessions. If you want to be a successful leader you need a personal development plan, and you need to aggressively pursue knowledge and experience every day.
You’ve got to stay. This is an unpopular concept for many in the workforce today, and often it’s argued that employees should job hop to advance their careers and earning power faster and more effectively. However, Thornton has a different perspective on this. He argues that high performing employees will always get offers to jump ship and take their talent elsewhere. You’ll get the “grass is always greener” argument all the time. Thornton’s response to that is simple. “Everybody’s grass has dirt on the bottom.” If you want to grow, build a deep and lasting career, and develop the kind of skills and experiences that will help you facilitate long-term growth, you have to stick around. In doing so, you’ll have the opportunity to build deeper relationships, gain key experiences that drive your growth, and expand your knowledge and talents most effectively.
** For the record, this writer’s favorite Waffle House meal is a Patty Melt with Hashbrowns fried well, covered (if you know, you know).
What’s yours? **
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